Border Police declare themselves sick in protest at conditions

Low morale among French border police has resulted in many walking off the job claiming sickness.

In the most recent case, eleven Border Police Officers (Police aux frontières, or PAF) in the Alpes-Maritimes have been on sick leave since Wednesday, December 27, to protest against working conditions on the Italian border, according to the union Unity SGP-Police.

The officers, from a Menton unit, were posted along with one more, in a mountain outpost at the Fanghetto border crossing in the Roya Valley, an entry point increasingly used by desperate migrants who have been unable to get into France along the coast.

Unity SGP-Police said the officers concerned are “simply tired and exhausted”. Their outpost has no running water or heating, despite the cold temperatures. Meanwhile, the

Prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes told AFP on Thursday, December 28, that it would follow “with great attention the PAF situation in Menton and the question of the working conditions of the police officers”.

While an investigation gets underway, the “sick” officers have been replaced by other national police normally posted in Nice.

A cold front coming in from Russia and Scandinavia will push down temperatures in much of France to at least five degrees below the January average on the weekend of January 7 and 8.
The cold belt will affect much of France, but largely avoid the southeast corner, including Monaco, where weekend temperatures are expected to be 9°C on Saturday and 13°C on Sunday although morning lows will drop to 2°C
In Strasbourg, on Saturday morning the overnight temperature is forecast to drop to 10°C. Heavy snowfalls are expected in the Pyrenees on Sunday, with snow also forecast for Burgundy and Alsace. Temperatures in Paris and Friday and Saturday will be between 3°C and -2°C degrees.
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NEWS: In the wake of Thursday night’s alleged terror attack in Nice that claimed 84 lives, police in Nice arrested three people in the early hours of Saturday morning.
The estranged wife of the perpetrator, 31 year-old Tunisian-born Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, was already in police custody. The delivery driver’s flat, just north of the main train station, in Nice has also been searched.
The refrigerated truck that Bouhlel used to mow down his victims on a two-kilometre stretch of the Promenade des Anglais as a fireworks display ended, just after 22:30 on Thursday night, was the largest and heaviest that the rental company in St Laurent du Var had on its books, the company said.
Among the dead were Fatima Charrihi, whose son said she was the first to be killed, the deputy head of the Nice border police, Jean-Marc Leclerc, and two American tourists, Sean Copeland and his 11 year-old son, Brodie. In all, ten children were among the dead with 202 injured. Some 52 people remain in critical condition in local hospitals.
President François Hollande, who said that attacks in Syria and Iraq would be increased after the outrage, was booed by crowds when he visited Nice on Friday amidst widespread anger that the French authorities had not done enough to ensure security during France’s national holiday celebrations.